Top economist Zachary Karabell discusses the statistics, measurements, and terms such as GDP, unemployment rate, and trade deficit; and how they came to dictate our public policies and personal decisions.
Read moreA House Is a Home—Not an Investment
Five years after the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the onset of the 2008-2009 financial crisis, the U.S. housing market is at last starting to thrive. It has, in fact, been steadily improving over the past years, and that trend has only accelerated of late.
Read moreA recovery without a home
Five years after the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the onset of the 2008-2009 financial crisis, the U.S. housing market is at last starting to thrive. It has, in fact, been steadily improving over the past years, and that trend has only accelerated of late. Housing is widely perceived as a key ingredient to a healthy economy, and so the revival in the housing market has been heralded as a positive step for an American system that has been sluggish at best. Similar trends in the United Kingdom and parts of the EU are greeted as positives as well.
Read moreThe Lady Gaga Fix: How the U.S. Is Rethinking GDP for the 21st Century
This week the government released yet another revision of first-quarter economic growth showing that the U.S. economy grew a tad less than initially reported ‑- 2.4 percent rather than 2.5 percent. This revision was hardly consequential, but over the summer the Bureau of Economic Analysis will unveil a new way to calculate the overall output of the United States. And that revision will be dramatic.
Read moreCOLUMN - Building a better economic yardstick: the new US GDP
This week the U.S. government released yet another revision of 2013 first-quarter economic growth showing that the economy grew a little less than initially reported - 2.4 percent rather than 2.5 percent on an annualized basis.
Read moreWhy high corporate profits aren't so bad
Google, Amazon, eBay, Apple, Honeywell, United Technologies, Netflix, Target and on and on have thrived. And they're not thriving at the expense of society, whatever the rhetoric about inequality would suggest.
Read moreIn Defense of High Corporate Profits
Over the past month, America's largest companies reported their earnings for the first quarter of the year. These quarterly reports provide as much insight into our economy as any of our leading indicators. And these results, if read correctly, highlight once again the bifurcated world we live
Read moreIt’s an old numbers game. What if they’re wrong?
When President Obama unveiled his $3.77 trillion budget, a key selling point relied on a somewhat arcane economic indicator: the ratio of federal debt to GDP (the goods and services the nation produces). How much debt can the nation manage?
Read moreThe 'Laws of Economics' Don't Exist
In a world increasingly framed by economic debates, the phrase "the laws of economics" has become ever more prevalent. As the U.S. Senate prepares to unveil a new immigration bill, much of the discussion centers on the economics of illegal immigration and the incentives for employers to hire undocumented workers.
Read moreIs the U.S. Turning Into Japan? We Should Be So Lucky
Over the past few years, it's become ever more common to hear comparisons between the United States and Japan. They are not favorable. They come in the form of dark warnings that the current policies of the United States will lead to a fate similar to Japan's over the past 20 years: stagnant growth with no end in site.
Read moreIs the GDP Report Really Important?
Today’s GDP report is proof of something that many have long suspected. Not, as the first headlines shouted, that the U.S. economy is in trouble, but that we need to stop using these numbers as proxies for how we are faring as a nation.
Read moreAmid the Gloom, U.S. Economy Quietly Improves
With the seemingly endless cacophony of negative news about the parlous state of the globe, you would never know that over the past two months the statistical entity known as the U.S. economy has been doing rather well.
Read moreThe Faulty Logic Behind the Market Sell-off
Things Are Bad Unless You’re Amazon, Starbucks or Expedia
The Unknowable Lightness of Being
Each month, the Federal Reserve releases its latest minutes of its last meeting along with its projections of economic activity (www.federalreserve.gov). The minutes just released indicate that its prior forecasts have been tweaked a bit, with update projections for unemployment over the next two years, GDP growth, and inflation. As new data become available, the hundreds of economists at the Fed revise and recalculate numbers, which means that any forecast rarely lasts more than a few months.
Read moreThe Myth of the Stock-Economy Connection
Last week, I wrote a column in Time about the unfortunate tendency of investors, pundits, economists et al to view stock markets as barometers for the economy and economic data as indicators of the markets. This tendency is pronounced in the media in general and the financial media above all, which looks daily for a story about why markets move up or down.
Read moreChina's Growth: Still for Real
This week, the Chinese government announced that China's economy had expanded by a stronger-than-anticipated 10.7 percent in the last quarter of 2009 and that it had grown 8.7 percent for the entire year. This news, however, was not greeted with relief but with the skepticism that has typically met such news emanating from China in recent years. The Wall Street Journal ran a story on its front page with the headline "China Seeks to Tame Boom, Stirs Growth Fears."
Read moreThe Recession Is Over — and It Isn’t
With Wall Street — and the Federal Reserve — in a headlong rush to declare the recession over, the economic data has indicated that the simple binary recession/no recession framework obscures more than it reveals. Yes, defined purely in terms of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), the recession looks to be winding down, with strong indications that GDP is about to turn positive after a long and painful swoon.
Read moreThe Economic News Isn't All Bleak
The recent economic news has been dismal, and it's now almost universally assumed things will get worse before they get better. Conventional wisdom also dictates that this recession will be longer, deeper and cause more long-term pain than any financial crisis since the Great Depression.
Read moreIf “The Economy” Is So Bad, Why Isn’t Obama Doing Better?
The near-miss of Gustav and the laughable (but effective) spin of the Republicans to foreswear politics and put on their “American hats” means that we can now resume watching our regularly scheduled show of politics. Obama’s acceptance speech last week was long on pocketbook issues, and short on foreign policy, and McCain will need to do the same. Indeed, his pick of Palin — who has zero foreign policy experience — highlights that this election is revolving around economic issues.
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